Bridges Hall

Bridges Hall, Reading University

First Aid

I cut my hand while cleaning inside a glass, and it looked pretty bad. It was a clean cut, so was bleeding very badly and making a big mess. It looked pretty scary to me, seeing a broken glass and my blood going everwhere.

I tried putting my hand under the tap to rinse the blood and see if there was any obvious glass in my hand, but as soon as I stopped to look the blood just came back straight away; so I wrapped a tea towel around it loosely to try and stop blood getting all over the floor any more than it already was and went to find the porter.

Unsurprisingly, after getting to the porters office at reception there was no one there. We are supposed to have a 24hr porter present, but normally they are walking around the hall or just somewhere else. It took 20 minutes until the porter returned (they don't have a pager or phone or anything). Then when they did (the bleeding was stopped now) we went to the First Aid room and there wasn't a first aid kit ! Nothing !

I find the whole thing very bad. We should have a way to contact the porter when they are somewhere else (a phone would be ideal, and they are dirt cheap; especially for a University establishment.) and the lack of a first aid kit is simply beyond comprehension.

In case of emergency...

I just walked past the porters lodge, and the porter isn't there (again.)

Today though they have a notice to say what to do in case you need to contact the porter in an emergency.

    In case of emergency only please write a note on the pad provided.

No Shower

Someone decided to smash a toilet (yes, really); so the hall 'authorities' decided to lock the bathroom until someone owns up. This means that we only have one bathroom left between two corridors, and that bathroom contains only 4 toilets and 2 baths. No shower. Well, we discovered that one of our keys opens the door to the next corridor along, so we can use theirs. That one is broken though, it doesn't have temperature control. Fine if you want a REALLY HOT shower, but no cool water to wash my hair in :-(

Getting a Shower

I checked with the porter that was on duty during the day that it would be ok to have her open another corridor so that I could have a shower later on. She said that was ok. When I told her it would be about 9pm she suggested that she might not be around, but would mention it to the person taking over.

So at about 7pm I went for a run, came back and waited half an hour for the 24 hour porter (again, the sign was out informing me how to contact him in an emergency situation.) When he came back from wherever he was, I asked if I could have the key to my new room (we have to move for the holiday into another room) now, instead of tomorrow morning this way I could have a shower there. He said no; so I asked him if he would open a corridor for me to shower then. He said no, and walked into another room locking the door behind him. I waited another 15 minutes for him to come back, and mentioned that I had asked in the day and they said then that it would be ok. After a bit more of this, he was looking extremely irritated and agreed, informing me that he would open it once and that he wasn't my personal door opener. So we walked into the building and he opened my corridor. I reminded him that I already had the key to that one, so he opened another. I held it and he left; I ended up wedging my shoe in the door so I could go get a towel and things.

This REALLY annoyed me. Why should I get so much hassle about requesting only a shower ? Especially after I'd already checked it was OK. I am extremely angry that they removed the shower facilities in the first place.

I feel like requesting the University do an audit, or some kind of satisfaction survey.